Cop Out

San Bernardino City Attorney Jim Penman

Crime doesn’t pay . . . but defending the San Bernardino Police Department against a buttload of lawsuits apparently does. The City Council recently approved a $300,000 budget increase to the city attorney’s budget because, well, people keep suing cops, according to the San Bernardino County Sun. From December 2008 to Dec. 2011, the number of lawsuits—most alleging use of excessive force (ACLU, take note)—filed against the PD increased by 104 percent. Naturally, there’s nothing to those excessive force allegations, absolutely nothing, says City Attorney Jim Penman. Corrupt, brutal cops in San Bernardino?—perish the thought. “Our officers are well trained, they’re well disciplined, and we win almost all of those cases,” Penman told the Sun. “The problem is we need to prepare fully for them because if the city loses it’s a big hit.” Speaking of “big hit,” the $300,000 increase was approved just a couple of months after Penman’s office secured nearly $1 million to deal with budget cuts. Naturally, police officers have nothing to do with the spike in excessive-force charges, Penman declares. “Part of the problem, I think a big part of the problem, is we have so many parolees in this city, and we have so many criminals who are armed,” he says. So if Jim Penman says the increase of lawsuits has nothing (absolutely nothing!) to do with, get this, real-life instances of police brutality, well, then case closed. Thanks for clearing that up, Jim!